• 60 Seconds with Swett: Navigating the Next Five Years in Seniors Housing M&A

    Are we entering the golden age of seniors housing? Next year, the first baby boomers will start turning 80, and with the current lack of new construction, occupancy rates are already rising before the real demographic wave hits. Many investors, both veterans and those new to our space, will feel pressure to grow their seniors housing holdings to... Read More »
  • Blackstone Sheds Another Asset from Its Seniors Housing Portfolio

    Blueprint handled a couple of sales in Florida and Nevada. The first in Florida involved a global private equity firm selling a 145-unit assisted living and memory care community in Boca Raton, Florida. Ben Firestone, Dillon Rudy and Jacob Ghel of Blueprint facilitated The Atrium at Boca Raton’s ownership transfer. The community presented certain... Read More »
  • CareTrust REIT Establishes SHOP Platform

    Three Texas seniors housing communities with 270 assisted living and memory care units were acquired by CareTrust REIT, Inc. The publicly traded REIT purchased the communities for $40 million, or $148,100 per unit. This marks the first investment of CareTrust’s SHOP platform. The communities were 86% occupied at the time of acquisition and will... Read More »
  • Ensign Grows Through Separate Transactions in Three States

    The Ensign Group, Inc. increased its portfolio through three separate acquisitions in Kansas, Arizona and Colorado. The publicly traded provider expanded its growing Midwest footprint through its Kansas acquisition of the real estate and operations of Willow Point Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, a 45-bed skilled nursing facility in Kansas... Read More »
  • Developer/Operator Divests to PE Firm

    A developer and operator sold Rivertown Ridge, a Class-A seniors housing community in the Grand Rapids suburb of Wyoming, Michigan, to a private equity firm. This community, built in 2020, features 152 units of independent living, assisted living and memory care, and has exhibited strong performance.  The seller, Redstone Homes, was... Read More »
Oxford Finance Secures Credit Facility for Missouri Acquisition

Oxford Finance Secures Credit Facility for Missouri Acquisition

Oxford Finance announced its role in funding SRZ Management’s (Reach LTC) acquisition of a large skilled nursing facility in the St. Louis suburb of Town & Country, Missouri. The buyer received a $7.4 million senior credit facility and revolving line of credit to support the purchase and general working capital. Jeff Binder and Patrick Byrne of Senior Living Investment Brokerage represented the seller, National HealthCare Corporation (NHC), in the deal. Built in the 1960s, the facility was set to be replaced by a 187-unit senior living community, which would be developed by Ryan Companies at a cost of about $60 million. However, NHC couldn’t get the project through planning and zoning... Read More »
SLIB Handles DHC’s Latest Divestment

SLIB Handles DHC’s Latest Divestment

Diversified Healthcare Trust’s divestment strategy certainly wound down in 2020, but nine more senior living properties have so far sold this year. The most recent closing was for a 137-unit/bed rental CCRC in North Platte, Nebraska, which according to the REIT’s third quarter supplemental report sold for $3.0 million, or $21,900 per unit/bed. Built in stages from 1988 to 1997, the community has grown to include 68 skilled nursing beds in 62 units, 57 assisted living beds in 42 units and 27 independent living one-bedroom units. Occupancy was around 80% in May but began to improve throughout the summer until a COVID outbreak at the end of September.  The non-core property was marketed... Read More »
To Be Public Or Not

To Be Public Or Not

There are a lot of people who do not believe seniors housing and care companies should be publicly traded. It is not appropriate to try to manage quarterly revenues and profits when you are taking care of older, frail residents. And don’t forget the earnings disruptions that can be caused by new developments and the ongoing depreciation expense if you own your real estate. It is just difficult to please investors and analysts with all the variables, including external ones that you have no control over, or so the argument goes. And then there is the roller coaster of daily stock prices. Take Genesis Healthcare, as an example. This past Monday, its price plunged by as much as 19% on trading... Read More »
National Healthcare Corporation Holding Its Own

National Healthcare Corporation Holding Its Own

With all the media attention on financial problems within the skilled nursing sector (and we are guilty of this as well), there are some companies which are doing okay in this environment. One is National HealthCare Corporation, a publicly traded company that keeps very quiet but, with a market cap of $989 million, is one of the largest public senior care companies. For the three months ended September 30, 2017, its average Medicare rate has increased by $6.00 to $459.63 year over year, while its Medicare patient days increased marginally. Meanwhile, it managed care average daily rate (which we assume to be mostly Medicare Advantage) remained flat while the total managed care patient days... Read More »

Senior Care Stocks Remain in Doldrums

Seniors housing and care stocks remain in the dumps. There has been no Trump bump for them, as the rest of the market is up 16% since the beginning of this year. We should be only half as lucky. One would think that the skilled nursing dominated companies would have been the hardest hit, given all the talk of Medicaid block grants and census declines. But through mid-October, two of them have actually posted gains so far. Diversicare Healthcare Services is up 11% and The Ensign Group has eked out a small 2.2% gain so far this year. Meanwhile, National HealthCare Corporation has dropped nearly 15% this year, and Genesis HealthCare has plunged more than 75% and has settled in around $1.00... Read More »